Black Rock Mining Ltd (BKT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Black Rock Mining Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Black Rock Mining Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Black Rock Mining Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Black Rock Mining Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Black Rock Mining Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Black Rock Mining Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Black Rock Mining Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Black Rock Mining Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Black Rock Mining Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Black Rock Mining Ltd
Strengths of Black Rock Mining Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Black Rock Mining Ltd are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Black Rock Mining Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Black Rock Mining Ltd has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Black Rock Mining Ltd in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Black Rock Mining Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Black Rock Mining Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Black Rock Mining Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Black Rock Mining Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Black Rock Mining Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Black Rock Mining Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Black Rock Mining Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Black Rock Mining Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Black Rock Mining Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Black Rock Mining Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Black Rock Mining Ltd staying ahead in the Construction Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Black Rock Mining Ltd is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Construction Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Black Rock Mining Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Black Rock Mining Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Black Rock Mining Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Black Rock Mining Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Black Rock Mining Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Black Rock Mining Ltd a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses of Black Rock Mining Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Black Rock Mining Ltd are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Black Rock Mining Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Black Rock Mining Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Black Rock Mining Ltd has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Construction Services industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Black Rock Mining Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Black Rock Mining Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Black Rock Mining Ltd is just above the Construction Services industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High dependence on Black Rock Mining Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Black Rock Mining Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Black Rock Mining Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Black Rock Mining Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Black Rock Mining Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Black Rock Mining Ltd is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Construction Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Black Rock Mining Ltd has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Black Rock Mining Ltd lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Black Rock Mining Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Black Rock Mining Ltd even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Black Rock Mining Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Black Rock Mining Ltd are -
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Black Rock Mining Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Manufacturing automation
– Black Rock Mining Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Loyalty marketing
– Black Rock Mining Ltd has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Black Rock Mining Ltd can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Black Rock Mining Ltd can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Black Rock Mining Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Black Rock Mining Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Black Rock Mining Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Black Rock Mining Ltd to increase its market reach. Black Rock Mining Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Black Rock Mining Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Black Rock Mining Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Black Rock Mining Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Black Rock Mining Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Black Rock Mining Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Black Rock Mining Ltd can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Developing new processes and practices
– Black Rock Mining Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Construction Services industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Black Rock Mining Ltd to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Black Rock Mining Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Black Rock Mining Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Black Rock Mining Ltd are -
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing wage structure of Black Rock Mining Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Black Rock Mining Ltd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Black Rock Mining Ltd is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Black Rock Mining Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Environmental challenges
– Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Black Rock Mining Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Black Rock Mining Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Black Rock Mining Ltd.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Black Rock Mining Ltd will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Black Rock Mining Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Construction Services industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Construction Services industry regulations.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Black Rock Mining Ltd in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Black Rock Mining Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Black Rock Mining Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Black Rock Mining Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Black Rock Mining Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Black Rock Mining Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Black Rock Mining Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.